The farm and farmhouse

About Me

Hi! Im a wife in my low twenties, living on a farm in the Midwest. Just trying to make ends meet and save for our future as we remodel our old farmhouse, and stay out of debt.
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As of November 2018

I paid OFF all credit cards. I paid the mortgage. I paid $122.06 towards the LOC. I put back $50 for vacation, and saved $225 for the EF.

Have to pay 6 month car insurance due this week, but have it mostly in cash.

Have a person coming to look at the car this morning, so prayers that they take it. That would really help us out so much! If it sold for the asking price, I would only owe about $850 on the LOC, which I could knock out in a couple months.

Cat is still up and down. He has acted a little sick a couple times, but when it was time for the vet appointment he would start acting fine again. Arg.

Job is going well. We are pretty swamped for the next several weeks, which is good! And that will pay for February, so I don't have to worry about getting let go because of no business. I'm enjoying going out to lunch and meeting with clients once a week, and working from home the rest of the time.

Tomorrow a girlfriend and I are going to the movies to see "Into the Woods" and then we are getting ice cream.

I finally listed the Cobalt for sale last night. I already have 5 people coming out to look at it over the next several days!!

Keeping my fingers crossed that it sells. Have it listed for $400 more than I am really hoping for, so I'm pretty confident that I will get that I want, and it seems like it will go quick.

Had a lot more people comment on it and ask questions, and it hasn't even been listed for 24 hours yet. Haha, I should have asked for more.

It will be such a relief to be done with it, and be able to pay off most of the LOC. Drove it to town today and it's still running great. Vacuumed it out. Tonight we are changing the oil. Now I just need to give it a quick scrub.

I won't lie. I'm going to miss it. Such a quiet, smooth ride, and it has a lot more power than the Neon. Sigh.

As a side note, I am sick. Ugh. I didn't do much working today. I did take an hour nap, that felt great. Had to postpone client meetings until Thursday. Praying I get over it quickly.

Well bad news and good news. The bad news is that my cat was acting sick again Saturday night, so I had another appointment for today. The good news is that on Sunday he woke up feeling fine again. Today he is being his normal self, so the vet visit has been put on hold for the time being. Maybe he was just having a bad night. If he shows anymore signs he will go straight back to the vet. Really praying that he will get better and not regress again.

If he is indeed sick again, that means antibiotics aren't working and they are going to have to knock him out and look inside his ear. One of the permanent ways to cure chronic and severe inner ear infections with cats is to remove the ear canal and everything inside. Then he would be deaf. Really hoping it doesn't come to that. Hopefully other treatments will work.

Or if it turns out not to be an ear problem at all, then we are looking back to doing scans for tumors, or brain damage, etc.

Trying to stay optimistic.

My parents gifted me a windfall of $200. I'm going to send $80 to the credit card, and the rest I'm going to hang onto for now, in case of more vet bills.

Wow I can't believe it. I called the propane company and ordered some at around 9 this morning. And by 9:20 the truck was already out here delivering it! Usually it takes days to get them out here. Besides the fact that the company is over 30 minutes away, so they must have just happened to have a driver in the area.

So glad I'm on budget billing this year. I don't have to worry about coming up with lump sums, and also I'm locked in at a maximum price of $2 a gallon, whereas last year it got over $4 in the winter.

My paycheck will clear tomorrow. *crosses fingers* I told employer I still had not received it and he was very upset. The company he hired out to do it made some sort of mistake, and he was on the phone with them for over an hour yesterday. He said if they don't get it right this time, he is just going to write me a check. That's fine, I'm in really no hurry.

My first paycheck should clear tomorrow, and I'm still up in the air about what to apply it towards.

Including the cash I made today from doing freelance work, I will have a total of $665 after bills.

My only current plan is to put $275 towards my EF. Which leaves a remaining $390.

There is $370 on my credit card, but it's not due until March. So I was thinking of paying $300, and putting the other $90 on the LOC. Or should I just pay it all off, and only send about $20 to the LOC? Sigh. I can never decide. What would you do?

Husband wanted to be included in the budget so last night we sat down and figured up a new budget now that I know exactly what I will be making after tax.

Of course the budget will be a little different for these first couple checks because I owe myself some money and my credit card needs paid down. But hopefully this will be our budget once things get settled.

Husband had promised to buy me a dresser for Christmas, but I couldn't find one I liked.

We desperately need storage for our house, so we thought a small dresser for a blank wall in the living room would be great.

A couple weeks ago we went shopping and were just going to buy one at homegoods, but I wasn't too enthused about any of them. I nearly settled for a $200 cheapo looking one, but decided at the last minute not to get it.

Well last night I was searching craigslist for the thousand time and finally found a winner!

Here it is in it's new home. It's so cute and only cost $100! Please don't mind our missing baseboards and drywall dusty floors! Work in progress...

It looks good in the picture. But in real life the color looks kind of greenish. (Our walls are actually charcoal grey)The way it looks in the picture is my favorite color, and matches our decorations. But in real life, I'm not so sure it's a good fit.

This picture is a little more true to color but still not accurate. And yes, we have a lot of board games stacked "hidden" under a table, and yes that is a lego castle. Haha. I wasn't kidding that we have no storage...

I'm considering repainting it a little bit more bluish. But what do you guys think? Maybe our dark lighting is just discoloring it, and I hate to paint it and ruin it. Sigh. I'll wait and see what husband thinks.

Yesterday I cleaned off a bookshelf and found some old school books. Only one was worth anything so I decided to list it on amazon. I wanted it gone fast so I listed it for $40, about $5 less than the others.

It sold the same day, and I took it straight to the post office. Well sadly it cost me $14 to ship, and amazon only allotted me $7. So after extra shipping and their their fees, I made less than $25. Arg.

Anyway I got home, and decided I wanted to build a phone app. So I got started, and instantly realized that the coding language that is used for apps, was what the book I just sold was about. Gr. Hopefully I can figure out it without a book. lol. I should have just kept it.

Also my design company landed another elance job... And then we realized that the website was for illegal drugs, and we had to gracefully decline and back out.

Sigh. It's just been one of those days.

On the upside I deposited the goat money and paid off one of my credit cards completely. I will now only be using the Chase card until I get the $500 spent to receive the bonus.

My poor cat that was very sick on Christmas Eve regressed and was right back to where he started. Circles and circles, no balance, meowing, hissing, couldn't stand, etc.

So he went back to the vet this morning. They gave him more steroids and a long lasting injection antibiotic instead of the oral meds. I have another shot to give him in a week.

My poor little baby. I am very fortunate that the vet is very nice and reasonable. The injection was $47 but they didn't charge me for office visit. So including the steroid injection the visit only cost me $57, Whew.

They said this might be a chronic issue and that he may have to get steroid shots on a normal basis. Praying that isn't the case, and that this time the stronger meds clear it up for good!

In other news, I believe I am getting paid on the 15th. So that is a welcome surprise. I will use that money to pay down the credit card, pay excess bills, put some in the EF, and hopefully a little to the LOC.

My first day on the job turned out well. Met up with the team, and we went to dinner and a Meet Up. Learned quite a bit.

Yesterday didn't go so smoothly. I got up early and cleaned outside, and got the goats all ready. Well 15 minutes after they were suppose to be there, they called and said they had car trouble and couldn't make it. So I wasted half my day, when I should have been working! Hopefully they will be able to come on Saturday.

Then I had to go get fitted for a bridesmaid dress for Sister-in-law. So that took up the rest of my day, and also cost me $125 for a half down payment. Yes, you heard that right... It's a $250 dress. Honestly it's not that special, and it costs more than my own wedding dress did! Ouch. I had completely forgotten about that expense. Sigh.

I did take my laptop in the car, and got some work done. Talked with my first official client, and started working on her stuff last night. Love it!

Today is the first day on the job! How exciting. I'll be meeting with a client, discussing future plans, going out to dinner, and going to a meet up. Sounds like a fun day.

Tomorrow someone is coming to look at the goats and possibly buy one. I also received two more emails last night inquiring about goats. Arg. There just isn't enough to go around.

Made some more progress on the debt front. I used my last paycheck, and also a monetary gift given to me by my parents to pay down the credit card and also the line of credit. $100 to the LOC, and I paid over $200 on the credit card, bringing the balance down to about $75.

Went ahead and sent my mortgage payment today. It hasn't cleared yet, but I believe once it hits my balance will be down to $49,343.07!

In 2 more months I should be into the $48ks! How exciting.

I also sent $70 to the LOC. The money would have probably been safer to send to my credit card. But husband has been pushing to pay the LOC down, so I figured I would please him and make a principle payment. Plus it will save us about .40 in interest each month. lol.

Today marks the first day of my life without a routine job. It was great not having to hurry into work. Time will tell if it will work out long term.

Monday (the first day on the new job) we are going to a Meetup. Can't wait. It's fun to meet people that are similar to me, and I always love learning new things.